Legislature convenes rushed redistricting special session

TALLAHASSEE -- Lawmakers released a re-drawn congressional map Thursday which would shift the contours of seven U.S. House districts spread throughout Central Florida.

On the first day of a court-ordered special session, House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, and Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, showed how they plan to resolve the two improperly gerrymandered congressional districts held by U.S. Reps. Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, and Daniel Webster, R-Winter Garden.

The new map would shift the city of Sanford out of Brown's seat, and remove an "appendage" of voters in Orange County out of Webster's. It would drop the black voting-age population of Brown's seat from 50 percent down to 48.1 percent, and shave some GOP voters from Webster's seat.

But it also changes the maps of five other congressional seats, within 23 counties. Lawmakers said they made those changes in order to solve overall compactness issues with their original plan.

"It was not just the two appendages. We needed to address compactness as a whole," said Senate Reapportionment Chairman Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, who added it improved the "serpentine-like" shape of Brown's seat.

@ggmary, There are some traditional Republicans, but most are in hiding for fear of being targeted for extinction. As it turns out the Republican's worst enemy is not a Democrat, but another Republican. And the more intolerant you are the better your chances for survival.

The new proposal also shifts the district of Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Orlando, further into Orange County and takes away a swath of southern Osceola County -- which is shunted into the District 17 seat held by Republican Tom Rooney.

The maps are slated for committee votes Friday and floor votes early next week before going back before Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis, who ruled last month GOP consultants made a "mockery" of Florida's 2012 redistricting and has yet to decide whether to schedule special elections.

That has the potential to cause future legal challenges because thousands of absentee ballots have already been cast for candidates running in the existing districts -- potentially some of them in the wrong districts, depending on when the new map is put into effect.

"We're all going to end up in court after the elections, no matter how the lines are drawn," Seminole County Elections Supervisor Mike Ertel told a joint meeting of House and Senate members Thursday.

Lewis ruled last month that the Legislature's congressional map violated the 2010 anti-gerrymandering requirements thanks to evidence presented at trial that GOP political operatives had gamed the system to get more favorable maps submitted to the Legislature.

To avoid a repeat, lawmakers have locked down the process of re-drawing the seats, ordering staff to have no contact with congressional staff or political consultants. GOP leaders cautioned members in the House Thursday that any amendments to the map would need to come with information on everyone involved in drafting them.

Although the second-stab at drawing congressional maps comes with extraordinary insulation from political influence, Corcoran reiterated that even the judge had conceded it may be impossible to keep partisan influences completely out of the process -- especially once amendments start getting added to the plan.

Lewis found particular fault with lawmakers' decision to boost the black voting-age population in Brown's Jacksonville-to-Orlando District 5 seat above 50 percent by removing those voters from a seat won by U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park. Last week, he gave lawmakers until Aug. 15 to re-draw the maps, and has set an Aug. 20 hearing on whether to push back elections to fill the impacted districts.

But GOP lawmakers have also refused to consider pushing back the Aug. 26 primary or Nov. 4 general elections.

"We're here because we have a job to do. We're here to get our congressional map right," Weatherford said, admitting the legal challenge showed their first effort "had not been perfect."

"The window of time is very narrow. We did not choose this time-frame, but I'm confident we can accomplish it fast."

Lawmakers signaled last week they planned to make only minor tweaks to districts, although the groups that sued -- the League of Women Voters, Common Cause and other plaintiffs -- have urged them to make larger-scale changes.

"The Legislature’s conduct in their last attempt to draw a constitutional congressional map raises many concerns that, frankly, the Legislature itself ought to find troubling," the coalition of plaintiffs said in a statement.

"While Floridians were told almost daily how fully compliant the process was, it is clear that there was a methodical attempt to entirely frustrate Florida’s Constitution by legislative leaders and their agents."

Corcoran said any plan "that does it better than we do, we'll be happy to look at that."

Chaos is emerging in Central Florida congressional primaries, yet the affected candidates can do nothing but plod onward while worrying their Aug. 26 election may lead only to a very short term or be canceled, thrown out or challenged in court.

TALLAHASSEE -- The Florida Legislature is preparing a quick-fix this week to remedy its gerrymandered congressional map which would shed the "finger-like appendages" from two Orlando-area districts that a judge found improperly favored Republicans.

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